In the first part of this survey, BP authors were asked to comment about the game off the field–labor, economics and the Expos. The final survey question asked our respondents to take the Bud Selig Prediction Test.
The new Hall of Fame Veterans Committee didn’t elect anyone this year, despite having a number of excellent candidates in Ron Santo, Minnie Minoso, and the always-controversial Dick Allen. Because of this, it’s likely that the rules will be tweaked in the future, lowering the threshold for induction. Never mind the fact that the Hall of Fame has much bigger problems on its hands, small induction classes mean small revenue for the folks in Cooperstown, New York. The more serious issues will have to wait.
And the serious issues I’m referring to? How about the fact that the Hall of Fame needs to tweak its electorate as well as its rules in the future? Comments by some of the voters have made it clear that the Hall of Fame would be better served by new voters.
Brad Kullman enters his 14th season in baseball and his first as Assistant General Manager of the Cincinnati Reds after an off-season promotion. While the Reds stand to dramatically boost their revenue stream with the opening of Great American Ballpark, Kullman hopes to boost his stock as a future GM candidate working alongside General Manager Jim Bowden. Kullman recently chatted with BP about his love for the four-man rotation, the Reds’ proprietary defensive rating system, and the challenges of outsmarting the competition.
As a political animal, I usually find myself on the side of the libertarians. As such, the debate surrounding the ban of ephedra had me on both sides of the argument quickly. While my stated position that ephedra and other performance enhancing drugs–effective or ineffective, legal or illegal–has no place in baseball or any sport, I also know that the market should be free to the utmost extent and that ban or not, players will likely use a substance anyway. Watching “Fear Factor” tonight, I saw not one, but two ads for products–Stacker 2 and Hydroxycut–that are suddenly promoting themselves as “ephedra-free.” This brings up two points: that the market will move from one product to another as quickly as possible when there are widely perceived negatives that could impact sales, and that as fast as we ban one product, another similar product will pop up in its place. As satisfying as it might be for MLB to drop a ban on ephedra at all levels and as good a PR move as it might be, in the end, it probably won’t solve anything. Education, in my opinion, remains our best hope.